I’ve talked about the clever calculator features built into Google before. Most of my examples then were rather silly. Well I’ve started using it a bit more seriously recently. The great thing it does is allow unit conversions to be done effortlessly at the same time as the main calculation.

For example, I have a video clip that is about 350 MB and 45 minutes long. I want to know what the average bit rate for the encoding is, in kbps. 350 MB is 350 * 1024 * 8 kbits. 45 minutes is 45 * 60 seconds. Works those two out, divide the first by the second and I have my answer. Or just type [350 MB / 45 minutes in kbps](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-22,GGGL:en&q=350+MB+%2F+45+minutes+in+kbps) into Google and I have my answer with far less effort.

In case you didn’t know, Stargate SG-1 has been “cancelled”.

To be specific the Sci-Fi channel in America has decided not to pay for another series after series 10. But all is not lost. According to Wikipedia they will be making two straight-to-DVD movies by the end of the year (filming in April and June). The first will wrap up the Ori storyline and the other will be unrelated (check Wikipedia for some spoilers).

Also another completely separate Stargate series is planned to start in 2008/

Like Linux in general, there are few MythTV distributions you can get. Unlike Linux in general, most of them have specific purposes they work best for. The three popular ones I know of are:

• MythDora
• KnoppMyth
• MiniMyth

MythDora is just Fedora with MythTV (and its dependencies). This is intended to leave you with a completely usable Linux installation that includes MythTV. It comes on DVD and is certainly the largest of the three.

KnoppMyth is either based on Knoppix or Debian (or really both) depending on how you look at it. Knoppix is a slimline distribution based on Debian and KnoppMyth was originally based on Knoppix. But I’m sure I read somewhere that the latest is version is just based on Debian but in the same way Knoppix is. Whatever the situation is, all you really need to know is that it is a minimal installation that leaves you with a fully functional MythTV installation but relatively little else.

MiniMyth is the smallest of the three and the most specialised. It only runs the frontend software and only the EPIA mini-ITX motherboards. Furthermore it is designed to run disklessly booting over a network - mainly as a silent set top box in your living room.

The only one I’ve actually tried is KnoppMyth which was easy enough to install. From what I’ve been reading they all seem easier than installing MythTV into an existing installation.

I finally (technically) installed KnoppMyth (a Debian based Linux distribution designed just to run MythTV) today. I say technically since I installed it somewhere where I couldn’t connect any sort of TV signal up to it. So, although it works fine, I haven’t actually managed to test any of the important features. The only part of the installation that was a problem was that the hard drive KnoppMyth uses must be the master device on the primary IDE channel.

I had it on the secondary and it was not happy.

Jimmy Wales, the man behind Wikipedia has decided to launch a search engine.

In a move reminiscent of the Open Directory Project, Wikia Search will be human edited. Beyond that, not much is known, but it will be. One of the core philosophies, according to a recent interview with Jimmy is that everything should be as transparent as possible - definitely a long way from the current search engines.

Star Trek: Legacy is a space combat game featuring the voices of all five Star Trek captains. The damage effects on the ships is good; in fact the graphics overall are very good.

But unfortunately the game is rather simplistic and terribly crippled by a dodgy control system. Which is a shame since it had potential.

Apparently the BBC will begin offering programmes for download though Zudeo, a movie sharing service similar to YouTube, owned by Azureus, the developer of a popular BitTorrent client.

Although the downloads will contain DRM, the very fact that the reputation of BitTorrent for illegal downloads hasn’t put the BBC off partnering with a company that relies on it says a lot about them.

A recent update to EVE Online has made exploration (brought in a couple of weeks ago with Revelations) easier. How much easier? I don’t know since I was never successful before the update. But today I had my first success.

If you look around the EVE forums there is an in depth guide to scanning. I’ll give you short guide. First bit of info, you’re going to do most of your scanning on the solar system view. Get to this by clicking on the map and selecting solar system view from the top of the overview. Secondly you’re going to need a few skills, specifically Astrometrics III and whatever it’s prerequisites are. As with everything in EVE there are others that will help you.

Now, to actually scan. Open your scanner and from anyway in the system launch a Multispectral Probe. This scans an entire solar system and tells you if it finds a reading and what type. The type determines what type of probe to use next. You need “a bunch” (at least 5 or so per system) of “X Quest Probe"s where X is the type of the signature (gravimetric, lidar etc.). You can find stuff with the wrong probes but it will take more scans. Go to each planet in the system and launch one of the Quest probes. When you get to the inner planets you’ll have to choose which to cover since you can’t launch a probe within the range of another. When they’re all ready, select “Cosmic Signature” from your scanner and hit analyse.

Hopefully it will find something. If not, hit analyse again. Once you have something, things get easier. With a lot of luck the accuracy will say 0m which means you’ve found and go warp there and see what it is. More than likely there will be a deviation of some sort and you will have to scan a bit more. So warp to the signature and destroy any probes that can “see” it (you can see the scan range of the probes you have selected in the scanner window).

The next bit is a little hard to explain. There are different probes besides the Quest probes - for example Sift (make sure they begin with type though, gravimetric for instance, otherwise they aren’t the probes used for exploration). Each of these probes has a different range - the shorter the range the more accurate they are. You want to use the shortest range probe that has a range greater than the deviation of your result. So deviation of 0.37 AU (which I got) can be found with the Sift probe (rand of 1 AU). So drop the probe and scan. Unfortunately (As was the case with me), you may need to scan multiple times (with multiple probes). But with any luck, you’ll find something :)

Below are some screenshots taken during scanning and of the Omber asteroid belt I found. Not the most exciting thing to find but I was in empire space and I’d guess the really cool things are in low sec and beyond.

At the moment I have a Sky subscription with a Sky box. The Sky box outputs to my computer which is running Media Center which can change channel on the box using an IR blaster. This isn’t ideal and also means that I’ll never get HD since the Sky box only sends an SD signal out of the scart/composite output. Surely there must be a way to connect the computer directly to the computer and receive TV that way?

Well there is. But there are issues. Firstly you need a DVB-S card. These are just digital TV capture cards that you can plug the cable from a satellite dish into. If you stop there you will be able to receive all the free-to-air channels. Oddly enough though that won’t get you all the free channels.

To get the encrypted Sky channels you will need a CAM - Conditional Access Module - with a card reader. In theory you just put your card in and set up your DVB card to use it. Of course anything to do with decrypting commercial stuff is never that easy. You see there are many different encryption methods and most CAMs don’t support them all (and some only support one). What’s even worse is the method used by Sky is VideoGuard from a company called NDS (which is owned by News Corporation, the company which owns Sky). And guess what? You have to pay a license to use it. That doesn’t mean you can’t physically use it though. There are a couple of CAMs (literally two from what I’ve read) that can decrypt VideoGuard signals but the legality is questionable. Which is silly since generally speaking you’ll still have a (paid for) Sky subscription card in the reader.

The other issue is Sky’s Terms and Conditions on this issue. They say that the card must stay in the box the whole time, that you can’t use the card for unauthorised purposes and that the card needs to be paired to a specific box. However it doesn’t actually say you need to use a Sky box and the very first thing it says is that you are bound to the conditions once you put the card in the box. So surely if you never do that you aren’t bound to the conditions?

Ooh, drama. I recently received an email from a Carphone Warehouse representative asking me to remove the personal information about one of their employees I had published. Specifically, two of Charles Dunstone’s email addresses.

If one or both of the email addresses are actually personal addresses of Mr Dunstone and this is an attempt to protect them, then it’s rather futile. Firstly because I first heard of them from a commenter so someone else obviously knew it a while ago and as probably told others. Secondly, the fact that they were published for even a moment on the web means they’ve been scraped and stolen by hundreds of bots. So if they are being bombarded by emails offering cheap OEM software, fake Rolex watches, dodgy claims about various stocks or warnings about losing access to a PayPal account, I apologise.

As for the many emails from customers trying to sort out problems with their service? Well if people were getting the replies they wanted from the public emails then none of this would have happened. I should also point out that the email contained a standard disclaimer saying the correspondence was private. I figured that since it specifically regarded a public action (i.e. blatantly changing content on the site) then people would notice anyway and an explanation was in order.

As a final personal disclaimer I would like to say that unlike many others I still haven’t had any problems with TalkTalk as a customer.